Adobe Illustrator - Day 7

Only a few details were added since yesterday because they took a little longer than expected. - Nevertheless I am still making a noticeable progress. I was able to improve the shading process, which consists of the shapes contour and face. To achieve a fluent passage, you have to remember both of it sometimes, what was the reason for some struggling today. By the way, Illustrator provides a bundle of different patterns you can use for different types of surfaces. I already used one of these presets for the grass, and I will probably use some more of them for the waters, the trees and the streets surface tomorrow. Of course it is possible to create your own pattern, that can be saved and selected again afterwards. But first I had to figure out how to even use these presets correctly regarding the scale, the color and the background.

Some of the shapes already got their basic color, but these colors might change again tomorrow. Everything shall be well-matched, so the illustration can give a self-consistent impression in the end result. To achieve that, there is still some work to do.

Adobe Illustrator - Day 6

So my next little exercise will be an highway seen from above crossing a simple river. Although the illustration is obviously shown in 2D, I will try to add as many details and shades as possible, to create a 3D-like illusion. But first, there is still some work to do with the "base". It is getting easier and easier every hour to work with vectors, but I still have to figure out how to maintain a permanent connection between individual shapes and paths. For example: The bridge will have light bulbs on top of the three bows, and of course, they shall be placed in exactly the same relation to each other. I used tools like mirroring and flipping, but unfortunately there was always a tiny difference I had to compensate manually in the end. Maybe I will find the solution during further processing.

Up to now, the highway looks plain and simple. But this will change during the next steps due to added details, colors and shades. The main focus, by the way, will not lie on the bridge, but on a completely different spot. Can you already guess it?

Adobe Illustrator - Day 5

My next step is to become more flexibel while working with individual shapes. Combining or separating them makes it a lot easier to get the structure you want. Here you have to mind correct angles as you can see in my example below. The pattern consists of 6 circles, which means the change in angle has to be 60° to each other to close the structure. I am pretty sure there is a very easy way to type in this value with the aid of the "rotation" panel. - But somehow I could not figure out how to open this panel while copying the circles. So I had to improvise by adjusting the angle manually with the cursor. This has to be the most difficult way since I struggled for minutes with values like 59,72° or 60,25°. To close the pattern correctly, it is necessary to get the precise round number of 60°, as you can imagine already.

If you set a new center in the beginning, you can easily copy and rotate individual shapes around it afterwards. You just have to consider the correct choice of angle to fully close the pattern without any gaps. Up to now, I could not find a clean and simple way to do so yet.

Adobe Illustrator - Day 4

I didn't plan to put more than one evening into this little illustration, but it was so much fun shaping these guys that I just had to finish them appropriately. During editing I learned how to combine different paths and individual shapes to one single shape, what made it a lot easier to fill the background color with shades. It was also very helpful that the application makes your cursor "latch on" when being close to another edge. - A function I already appreciate in Photoshop. I figured out that a correct order in the pile of layers makes it simpler to work with them. Also something you might remember from PS, of course, but in Illustrator this method pays off more significantly.

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Inspired by the little game "Undertale" by Toby Fox, I had the idea of creating these incarnated flowers with a good and an evil side. This theme helped me a lot with getting started with the basic tools in Illustrator. I wanted to spend more time and effort on it, but this would have prevented me from working through the next steps.

Adobe Illustrator - Day 3

Today I finally found out how to receive clear and sharp edges. - Doesn't sound like a big thing, but I struggled for hours until I was able to control the corners just as I wanted to. After reaching this point, you immediately understand one of the main advantages of Illustrator: No limitations by pixels. You don't really have to care about the size of your digital canvas. Your sketch is always razor-sharp, which makes your image looking better and "pure". A characteristic I was not familiar with up to now when working with Photoshop. But of course you shall not forget, that both applications have different targets.

Normally I tend to draw technical and architectural objects, but this time I wanted to give something different a shot. Cartoon characters are easier to sketch, which makes some of them perfect for practicing with Illustrator. However, I still need one more day for this little fella, since I also try to put in more details. 

Adobe Illustrator - Day 2

In the next few days, I will be totally busy with testing the standard tools and finding out how to work with them correctly. It is already obvious to me that there is not "one single solution" to achieve something. In this case, Illustrator and Photoshop do not differ at all. But of course I try to use the most efficient way from the beginning, so I don't have to deal with questions like these in the long term. It is easier to adjust contours and repair mistakes than in Photoshop. - Even if you don't back up layers after some editing, which seems to make Illustrator much more suitable for projects where regular and numerous concept changes are normal. 

Compared to Day 1, it was a little more tricky to create abstract and geometric shapes like rectangles with rounded corners, linked circles or spirals. Nevertheless I was already able to find out much more efficient and accurate ways to work with shapes like these compared to Photoshop. 

Adobe Illustrator - Day 1

Since years I mostly work with Adobe Photoshop for graphic design purposes. - But I had to recognize a long time ago that there are even better programs with which I might be able to achieve much better results. To improve my skills, to perfect the personal work flow, and to qualify for new divisions, one of the applications I want to get used to in 2018 will be Adobe Illustrator.

I quick-drew the fictional character Amy Rose by Sega, scanned it, opened it in Illustrator, and tried to trace the face as good as possible. Since the interface and tools of Illustrator and Photoshop differ, it was more difficult than expected. - But not impossible after all.

To have some help I currently practice with a manual "Adobe Illustrator CC - Das umfassende Handbuch" by the author and designer Monika Gause. Up to now, I can totally recommend this book since all descriptions are easy to understand and underlined with hundreds of screenshots. ISBN: 978-3-8362-4505-0

New Year, New Goals!

2018! Another new year, and therefore a new opportunity to freshly set up some New Year's resolutions. Besides doing more sport, living healthier and trying to pull less all-nighters (simply the classics), my primary goals are to focus much more on popular and professional editing and design applications. - Programs I already worked with, but also programs I never ever used before. This includes graphic and web design applications, film and special effects editing software, and also, for my very first time, 2D- and 3D animation programs.

2018 will be a big year. It is going to be exhausting, nerve-wracking, challenging and desperate with sleepless nights snapping patience. But it is also going to be much more interesting, professional, diversified and creative since the last couple of years. I am positive that this year will set up a big step forward. - Reason enough to start documenting successes and projects with this blog, hoping that some posts might also be helpful for some of you, too.

Sincerely yours, and a Happy New Year,

Armin Kunz.